# Bad driving squared... not even a rant **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 26, 2002, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930 "2002-11-26T18:51:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/1 "2002-11-26T18:51:16Z")
[Link](http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=11351§ion=LOCAL&year=2002&month=11&day=13). Now, we all know there are bad drivers out there, and I think most people have some rose-colored glasses about their own driving abilities. I mean, we all make mistakes. But this story simply takes the cake. First, when approached by the Good Citizen™ and told they were under citizen’s arrest, the wife’s response was like something that might have come out of a Bizarro world’s SDMB: “_The wife yelled, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! I have children!’_.” I’m not even going to pretend I understand the rationale behind the remark. I’m going to go out on a long limb and say the response was the verbal equivalent of what the driver chose to do. > [@](#): > > "I told them I was on the phone with police and that they were coming,’’ Newcomb said. “Then they backed into me.” > > Newcomb said he fell to the ground and got up only to have the vehicle reposition and ram into him again. Question: Given the details here, it seems that the choice to hit Newcomb with the vehicle was pretty much a snap decision, not something that was thought over for some period of time (of course, that wouldn’t make it any better lest that implication come across). So, how in hell does a man live to be 40 years old _and_ maintain freedom if these are the sort of snap decisions he makes? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/2 "2002-11-26T19:04:06Z")
Wow. Kudos to those two college kids, especially Linder. This is the kind of guy I want on my side. Not only did he carry the motorcyclist to his own car and drive him to the hospital, he then went and chased down the asshats who hit the guy, putting himself at jeopardy in the process. This Linder kid is my new hero. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/3 "2002-11-26T19:13:26Z")
They are both valiant men! God go with them. ---
**Author:** ![glarGH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/76d3ee/32.png) [@glarGH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glarGH)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/4 "2002-11-26T19:16:39Z")
GO, LINDER!! ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/5 "2002-11-26T19:21:28Z")
:smack: I meant to touch upon what a cool guy Newcomb is. > [@](#): > > “If that happened to me, I would want people to do the same thing,” Linder said. “It was the right thing to do.” God damn right it was. But this simply wouldn’t occur to most people, I think. Maybe I’m too cynical. But still, what a guy, what a guy. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/6 "2002-11-26T19:49:24Z")
Bravo! I hope those idiots get put away for a long long time. ---
**Author:** ![Bongmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Bongmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bongmaster)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/7 "2002-11-26T20:17:58Z")
Unbelieveable. Personally I’d have drug them both out of the car and beat them senseless after backing into me intentionally. Damn good thing I never became a cop. ---
**Author:** ![welby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@welby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/welby)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/8 "2002-11-26T20:21:12Z")
Nice to see the ordinary citizen step up and take action in a situation like this. Too too often people don’t want to get involved. Way to go! ---
**Author:** ![c\_goat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@c\_goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_goat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/9 "2002-11-26T20:30:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Linder said he reached speeds of 80 mph I think that engaging in a high speed car chase on public roads is endangering the lives of other people, and I wouldn’t consider it heroic, but reckless. (Not in the case of police though, since they have lights and sirens to warn other drivers/pedestrians). I think the description of the car and the plate number would be doing your part, and since the car stopped after the accident they certainly could have gathered that information. Or at least gotten it when they later found the car driving around. Anyway, it is nice to see people who actually give a damn and would go out of their way to help someone like that. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/10 "2002-11-26T20:33:01Z")
The plates could have been stolen. And endangering lives? One man had already had his legs broken, and another had been run over. Twice. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/11 "2002-11-26T20:35:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by c\_goat \* > I think that engaging in a high speed car chase on public roads is endangering the lives of other people, and I wouldn’t consider it heroic, but reckless. I was thinking about that too, though I couldn’t tell from my scan of the article if the chase mostly occurred in an industrial park (my experience with them has always been that they’re very wide open and have little to no traffic) or merely ended there. If it was speeding in an industrial park I wouldn’t have had so much concern; it would have been horrible if another accident had been caused in the push to stop that vehicle. I’m glad to see concerned citizens, however, and hope that the kids turn out better than their parents seemingly did. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-driving-squared-not-even-a-rant/138930/12 "2002-11-26T23:31:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*The plates could have been stolen. And endangering lives? One man had already had his legs broken, and another had been run over. Twice. \*\* Actually, if you read the linked article a little more closely, you’ll see that the attempts to run over the Good Citizen[sup]TM[/sup] occurred _after_ the reckless high speed pursuit. And the wording of the article also suggests that the 80mph speeds occurred _on the way to_ the industrial park, not just in it. Given that highly trained police drivers with sirens and lights sometimes abandon or scale back a pursuit if it looks like becoming too much of a danger to the public, i think these guys let their cowboy instincts run a little wild. Even if the car’s plates had been stolen, a call to the police along with a location where it was last seen would still have left the cops with a pretty good chance of catching them. And if they had called the cops _before_ confronting the loser and his family, those losers would not even have known they were being followed and the high speed chase would not have been necessary at all. Having said all that, i still applaud their public-spiritedness.